


Three is Perfect

by Bramblepelt



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Healthy Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 21:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10625865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bramblepelt/pseuds/Bramblepelt
Summary: Lup tries her hand at the scientific method. Barry gets mushy. Lucretia is done.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's my birthday and I'll post Barry-Lup-Lucretia polyamory happy snuggletime if I want to.

“Three.” Lup held up the appropriate number of fingers, concentrating very hard on the domed ceiling of the ship, particularly a spot where the paint was beginning to crack and peel. Incredible how it seemed like yesterday the vessel was brand new, embarking on her maiden voyage, and now look at it. Instruments breaking more and more frequently, the once shining veneer that  coated every inch had dulled, and the once pristine exterior was showing just how many close calls they’d been through. “I think three would be the perfect number.” she said in a very bored tone.

 

Lucretia had long since begun refusing to indulge her vague conversation starters. They usually led to a build up to some sort of smart ass joke at her expense. That was the trouble with loving a girl like her: the closer you got, the harder her shields became. Sometimes Lucretia wondered if the ship could power it’s own defense systems with Lup’s sheer insistence on pushing away anyone who wasn’t her brother. Asteroid fields would be less of a nuisance, certainly.

 

“Three what?” Barry asked while running his fingers gently through her hair. Barry, unfortunately, had either not learned his lesson or didn’t care. He indulged every silly game she liked to play with people. He was almost as terrible as her twin in that regard. The poor fool was in love and he wore it on his sleeve. From where Lucretia was sitting, Lup’s legs draped over her lap and a large tome she was currently trying to translate in her hands, Barry looked like the epitome of the lovesick fool trope.

 

“Three kids.” Lup answered like it was an immensely obvious statement and not something she picked out of several minutes of incredibly comfortable silence. Barry’s face noticeably flushed. “Probably I’d like three kids. You know, it just seeeeems like the logical amount of offspring? I don’t know, you two are the science genius nerds, what’s the perfect number of kids?” she asked, lifting her head from Barry’s knee enough to gauge Lucretia’s reaction.

 

“For you dear? Zero.” Lucretia smirked, always happy to have the little dunks right there and ready to go. She took the tiny victories in Lup’s games where she could. “And to be honest I wouldn’t trust you with a fully grown sentient dog capable of taking care of itself much less an infant.” Lup let out shriek of laughter.

 

“Well that’s great and all but you’re the book nerd, not the math nerd so let’s ask the math nerd.” she tilted her head back and smiled up at her adoring beau. “Barrold, darling? How many kids do you think is the right number of kids?” her tone was lighter, showed a little bit more affection to it. Lucretia could only roll her eyes and go back to her studying.

 

She wasn’t jealous, and she wanted to make that fact quite clear to anyone who would think otherwise. What she and Lup had was perfect for who they were. Lup, who would pull her out of her self-imposed exile at the corner table to join in an impromptu game of charades. Lup, who wouldn’t hold back her relentless teasing but knew exactly where the line was drawn and never one crossed it, and encouraged her to throw the jabs right back. Lup, who slid into bed next to her late at night after drinking too much around the campfire with the latest batch of locals, snuggled into her arms and told her the highlights of the party while they both drifted off. The small moments when it was just them and a shared set of earbuds in an otherwise silent cabin humming along to whatever felt right that day. That was everything she needed and wanted and loved about Lup.

 

And what Lup couldn’t get from Lucretia she was more than capable of getting from Barry. The two spent time on the ship being  _ that couple _ . Pet names. Public displays of physical affection. Random assertions of how much one was in love with the other even when the other wasn’t around to hear it. Any time Lup wasn’t spending attached to her brother’s hip she was hanging on Barry’s elbow. She was loud about her emotions and open with her affections and Barry got to reap the benefits of Lup’s complete inability to rein herself in.

 

Lucretia sometimes wondered if her relationship with Lup would have ever been capable of maintaining itself were it not for the pressure valve that was Barry Bluejeans. 

 

“Uh, well, you see uh, I’d think...I’d think I’d like to hear your process for coming to the hypothesis you did.” Barry was a smart man. 

 

“Ok well first there’s kid number one, and that’s your burner kid.” Lup held up her index finger.

 

“Oh, uh…” Barry interjected.

 

“This is a bad way to start Lup.” Lucretia sighed.

 

“You have that kid and you know you’re gonna fuck them up because no one can parent right on their first try so you just try to do your best and hope they don’t develop some sort of complex they blame you for when they eventually write their autobiography. So the SECOND kid, now that’s where you’re in business.”  The middle finger joined the first.

 

“Oh boy. Oh, ok.” 

 

“You’re only proving my point.”

 

“See now you know what NOT to do so this kid gets raised right. This is the kid who grows up to be a normal part of society, right? They get a nice job on a great career path, probably they’re the one to give you nice normal grandkids, and when you get all old and decrepit that kid takes care of you. So then the third kid-”

 

“I am very unsettled.”

 

“Who would let you get to the third kid is my question.”

 

“The third kid is the FUN kid. You get to just spoil them rotten. You’ve got your responsible one who owes you for a perfect upbringing already locked and loaded so this one you can just give them candy for breakfast and let them watch scary movies before bed. Let them do whatever they want and be the cool parent. And then probably they grow up to found some multibillion dollar venture or they die choking on their toys honestly the pendulum could swing in either direction here. But what matters is the kid was happy doing whatever it was anyway. So there, that’s why three kids is the best bet.” Lup finished, beaming and fully proud of herself.

 

Barry sat in concerned silence, playing everything in his head over and over, looking like he was on the verge of some life changing self discovery of what he wanted for the future and how it probably was not that. Lucretia, on the other side of the couch, lowered her book down and gently closed it, took a deep breath, and just laughed her ass off. She was near tears when Lup finally sat up, grinning madly at her girlfriend, ears perked high up in satisfaction. 

 

“Oh my gods though, good luck with that Barry.” Lucretia said, wiping tears on her sleeve. “You are going to need it.”

 

Lup adjusted herself so she was facing back towards Barry, curling her arms gently around his shoulders and practically kneeling into his lap.

 

“Honeypie, jeanbean, come on. You know I’m goofing on you, come on now.” the puppy dog eyes blinked up at his face scrunched up in anxious concern. “Now I gave an answer and the smart one gave an answer, what does my precious geekasaurus think?” she asked again.

 

“Uh well…” he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, completely unnecessary but still a nervous habit, and let his arm curl around Lup’s waist. “You know I always just…assumed you’d bring home some grungy looking orphan or two you picked up off the street and we’d end up making a weird but loving family from it. Taako would be a terrifying but caring uncle, you know, and everyone else would just be like a sort of extended family. I think we’d come out of it doing a decent job between the seven of us.” he rubbed his hand up and down her back. “You’d make a killer mom you know. It’d take some learning from both of us but we’d do great.”

 

Lucretia felt her heart melting. He was a downright fool alright but he was a caring and sentimental fool and where would Lup be without the both of them balancing her exactly where she needed to be. She was too much for any one person to handle and neither Lucretia nor Barry would have it any other way.

 

“That wasn’t funny, you lose points for not making it into a joke.” Lup said, an obvious hitch present from attempting not to get too emotional. “But you get credit for being correct anyhow, Taako would indeed be a fantastic uncle and any kid should count themselves lucky to be in his family.” She ruffled his short head of hair and hopped up to her feet, stretching her arms over her head, the edge of her tank top creeping up to show a glimpse of her navel piercing. 

 

“Alright, it’s almost shift time. Taako needs me to chop the onions or he’ll just bitch and whine about it all week and frankly I cannot deal with another round of that.” She bent over and pressed her lips deeply against Barry’s, hands clasped gently behind her back in an almost perfect recreation of a Norman Rockwell in space painting. “I’ll see you at dinner Bearbear.” She side stepped to hover over Lucretia, hand lightly lifting the other woman’s chin to meet in a gentle kiss, letting their lips hover so close together for a moment.

 

“I can see you tonight?” she whispered, stroking the pad of her thumb over Lucretia’s cheek. Lucretia smirked back.

 

“I don’t know Lup, can you?” she answered. Lup’s eyes went wide and wild as she stood back up and laughed her way out of the cabin, muttering something about nerds and grammar cops and stroganoff.

 

“What would we do without her?” Barry sighed deeply, face still beaming red from his soul baring confession of a hopeful future.

 

Probably get a lot more work done, Lucretia thought to herself. But that was the problem. She’d spent enough of her life sitting in the corner table ignoring the sounds of  _ fun _ in order to get more work done. She’d done enough work for three Lucretia’s. Now it was important to look up from her journals now and then to see the eyes of an energetic and unapologetic woman she had completely lost herself in. 

  
“Let’s hope we never find out.”


End file.
